David Tennant: An Update

I've had a request! Well, not really a request. More of a question, and I suspect it is rhetorical, but I'm going to answer it anyway:

From Claire: "Will it be 90% about how much you fancy David Tennant?"

I mean, the short answer is no, because unlike when I started my first blog SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO (well done to Claire and anyone else who has been sticking it out this long through various incarnations) I no longer spend 90% of my time thinking about how much I fancy David Tennant (see above, in classic 'kitten' mode, though for full appreciation I think you need to see him in action). Back then was the heady days of Blackpool, Casanova, and of course Doctor Who, which I watched and reviewed on my blog obsessively. Perhaps a little too obsessively? OK, yes, I was hounded out of a David Tennant fan site for over-exuberant self-expression, and yes, it probably was an unfortunate coincidence that some friends of mine lived in the flat downstairs from him and I used to hang out in their garden but I can hardly be blamed for that, and yes, I did once drive across London because someone had spotted him at a party and I stood at the other end of the room and marvelled at his unique beauty and presence, but it was a big party, and I never rang on his doorbell, and the fans on the fansite didn't understand my sense of humour, and obsessing over Doctor Who is essentially a national pastime, and basically it would all have been fine except that he accepted a role in something I wrote and I don't think I managed to remove everything I ever wrote about him off the internet before he googled me and then he dropped out because of a "scheduling clash" and he moved house and I stopped writing about him online and he made some middling ITV dramas and I started fancying Taika Waititi and he got married and had really quite a lot of kids* and I didn't and we tacitly agreed to go our separate ways.

Since then I would say that my rate of fancying David Tennant has gone down to 'only moderately more freakish than average'. Which is a big improvement. (It went up a bit after I watched that greatest moments clip reel.) I didn't even watch the second and third seasons of Broadchurch, because I never liked the way that all the scenes were shot reflected in the back of a spoon. I did watch the first season of Jessica Jones in which he plays an evil supervillain, and Good Omens in which he plays a demon (theme emerging?), both of which are excellent additions to the David Tennant oeuvre - Good Omens (on Amazon Prime in the UK) in particular is perfect quarantine fare, not least because it's about the apocalypse, but in a cosy way, and if your heart doesn't melt at his bromance with Michael Sheen you're made of cold hard granite (that is, by the way, a great collection of headlines about Michael Sheen from Wales Online - I think my favourite is 'Michael Sheen says Port Talbot is Welsh 'Area 51' where UFOs have been spotted' though I'm saving a runner-up slot for 'Michael Sheen tells Graham Norton how Victoria Beckham mistook him for a tramp'.)

Cut to my flight to Costa Rica. I'm not much of a podcast person because I get around by bicycle and I don't tend to listen to things at home because I'm either doing something else, and therefore not really listening, or not doing something else, and therefore fidgetty and bored. (Although, top tip for the currently housebound: podcasts while doing jigsaw puzzles.) So I was quite excited to see that the in-flight entertainment (which I accessed after heavy scrubbing with a Dettol wipe) featured David Tennant's podcast, which is called something like 'David Tennant does a podcast with...' (...so far not Marie Phillips.) I put on the first episode, which was with Olivia Coleman, who I am also a fan of, though not in such a libidinal way, and immediately fell asleep. This was a surprise. It was a day flight, and my terror of flying usually keeps me awake under any circumstances. The podcast ended, I woke up, watched a few episodes of the Veronica Mars reboot, even though I have never seen the original boot, then put on the episode with Michael Sheen. And again, instant unconsciousness. What was this magical effect? The soothing nature of his voice? The intimate connection to one of the last remaining purely good things in a world of pain and insanity? Is it just quite a boring podcast? How would I know? I've never heard it. For the return flight, I planned it in: had my dinner, brushed my teeth, popped on David Tennant interviewing Whoopi Goldberg, and slept for six hours.

So there we have it: David Tennant, from sex bomb to sleep aid. What a life.

If you have any other questions that need answering, do feel free to send me a reply.

*five at time of writing